


Storm

by ellymango



Category: Ballerina | Leap! (2016)
Genre: Bad Weather, F/M, Memories, Reminiscing, Sharing a Bed, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22336843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellymango/pseuds/ellymango
Summary: When a fierce storm causes the window in their attic room to shatter, Odette can think of only one place to spend the night.Trouble is, he only has one bed.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	1. Blowout

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's not dead lol

The wind was never usually this bad.

But it had been howling all evening with a force that made the old windows whistle and quake, and the panels on the roof shudder. Odette had never heard anything quite as frightening, and neither had Félicie it seemed, given how the girl had crawled into bed beside her hours ago.

They hadn't spoken much at all, with Félicie staying curled up and trembling in Odette's arms, squeaking and squeezing her harder every time a particularly loud gale shook their attic room. Odette had hummed, sung, and whispered soft comfort into her hair accompanied with gentle kisses. It gave her a form of comfort, in a way.

A particularly aggressive howl ripped several panels from the roof, sending them clattering down to the street below. Odette felt Félicie burrow into her with a terrified whimper.

"Do you want to go to Mérante's?" The girl looked up, her eyes glassy with fear yet lidded with the urge to sleep. They both knew it would likely be quieter and less terrifying than staying here in the attic, so they would get more sleep...

But it also meant going outside.

Another sudden gale tore across the roof with such ferocity that a window in the adjoining room exploded loudly, causing Félicie to shriek and squeeze Odette so hard she winded her. It seemed the weather had decided for them.

Before they knew it they were both up, stumbling around in the dark trying to find their heaviest coats to pull on over their nightclothes, their thickest tights and boots, scarves and shawls and whatever else they could find to help brace themselves against the weather. Thankfully Odette knew Mérante’s flat was barely a few minute’s walk from the Opera.  
*  
It went without saying that he wasn’t used to hearing the door knock at this time of night, especially on a night when the weather was so bad his windows were rattling in their frames. Needless to say, Mérante approached the door with caution, peering through the keyhole at whoever was outside, and promptly flinging the door open at the sight of a thoroughly drenched and shivering cold Odette, with an equally miserable Félicie in tow.

"God I almost didn’t recognise you both." He bundled them both in, taking their soaked coats and leading them both to the settee. "What on Earth made you-"

"The window blew out." Odette could feel cold rainwater dripping off the tip of her nose and onto the carpet. "Not in our room but..."

"Right, right... Stay there, I’ll be back in a moment." Mérante hurried off, disappearing into what Odette assumed was his bedroom, eventually returning with an armload of blankets, towels, and spare clothes.

He frowned when he saw them still standing. "You can sit down if you want."

"I’m not getting your sofa wet, Louis." Odette graciously took a towel, drying her face and hair as best she could, turning to Félicie who was sheepishly trying to hide the fact she’d flopped onto the sofa as soon as they’d gotten in, leaving a soaking wet patch on the cushion. Wonderful.

"Well, I take it you’ll be sleeping on it." The largest of the towels was duly laid out over the sofa, tucked in and straightened as neatly as possible. Odette couldn’t help but smile at his meticulousness; in how something so simple as covering his sofa with a towel was so carefully done. She thought back to when they were younger, and how fussy he could be with everything from how his hair looked to what room he trained in, and realised he hadn’t change much in that regard.

Catching herself staring, she diverted her eyes back to Félicie, who had untied her braid to dry her hair, and was apologising for making the sofa wet. "I didn’t really mean to do it, I just... forgot I was wet."

"It’ll be uncomfortable sleeping on it, you know that? And you’ll get sick."

"Well, I’ll sleep on this end then!" Félicie jumped up onto the side of the sofa she hadn’t sat on before, stretching out and proving that she wouldn’t be near the wet area if she slept on that side. "See? I’m dry. Nowhere near the wet bit."

Mérante rolled his eyes. "And where is Odette going to sleep?"

"With you, of course."

There was a pause. A very awkward and uncomfortable pause. Odette caught Mérante’s eyes flashing over towards her then back to Félicie, still perched cross-legged on the sofa, and her face creased up in confusion. "What? Don’t adults who like each other sleep together?"

"Adults who are _married_ sleep together, Félicie." Mérante put special emphasis on the word "married", Odette noticed, which was ironic considering their past. Lord knew their lack of a marriage certificate hadn’t stopped them from doing far more than just sleeping in the same bed back when they were younger.

Félicie tilted her head to one side, seeming rather disappointed. How adorable. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Can you not like... pretend you’re married or something?" Félicie stretched out, pointing her toes as far as she could so she took up the whole sofa. "There’s not enough room for me and Odette to sleep on the sofa, see?"

"Well, you’ll just have to sleep on the floor then."

"But the floor’s cold! And I’m cold enough already." Ever the actress, she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered for effect, her eyes widening to maximum "blackmail mode" as Odette called it. Otherwise known as, "that look you give me when you want something."

"Well, the sofa will be cramped then. Move." Odette tapped Félicie’s shoulder, slightly trying to shove her over onto the wet half. But the girl stubbornly leaned with her touch, not budging an inch.

With a suitably disgusted scowl, Félicie pushed her arm away. "But you’re all wet and cold!"

"So are you, move over."

"If I may interject..." Both of them looked up at Mérante, who they’d forgotten was with them. "My bed is actually large enough for two people, if you two want to take it. I don’t mind sleeping on the sofa."

"I’m not evicting you from your bed, Louis." Besides, the left half of the sofa was soaking wet, courtesy of Félicie. No way was she going to make Mérante sleep on that, not when he was already putting them up for the night.

"I mean, I don’t mind..."

"Félicie, _quiet._ " Odette winced internally at how her acidic tone and pointed glare made the girl flinch. But she could apologise later, when they were sharing the settee like they were supposed to. She turned back to Mérante with a weary sigh, yet a firm tone. "We’re staying here."

"If you insist. But my bed is there if you’d like it."

He sounds... disappointed. No, that was just her imagination. He wasn’t disappointed she didn’t want to sleep with him; he’d always been too polite to let a guest sleep on the sofa, and was just unhappy she’d insisted to sleep there. That was it. That was why. That was-

Odette knew she was just making up excuses.

She looked back down at Félicie, who’d already made herself more than comfortable on the sofa, and was still attempting to take up as much space as possible. Odette wondered where the child had gotten this stubbornness from, because it couldn’t have been her.

"You’re not going to move, are you?"

"Nope."


	2. Sharing is Caring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably a complete disaster but whatever

Thankfully, Mérante’s bed was as big as he said. Odette just wished she wasn’t sharing it with him.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love him anymore. She did. She adored him more than she could put into words, from the moment he kissed her goodbye as he left her after the fire to the moment she felt his lips on her cheek on that one winter’s night backstage. She loved him, and she knew for sure he loved her too.

But as much as their relationship had improved over these past few weeks or so, she still didn’t quite want to sleep with him. Something about it felt far too... intimate. Too soon. Like they were teenagers barrelling into their relationship head-first. He seemed to feel the same way, she noticed, in how he kept his eyes down and how his words seemed too fast, seeming almost confused and flustered and how he bustled around his bedroom in a flurry.

"I... brought my own clothes, Louis." He stopped in his tracks, blinking at her with eyes that barely seemed to register what she said, before she held up the knapsack with her nightdress in it. "You didn’t notice?"

He shook himself. "Sorry I’m just... not focussing at the moment." With a sigh and a swallow, he fixed his eye on his bed. "It’s... it’s been a long time since we did this, hasn’t it? Over ten years I’d say..."

"Sounds right." She hugged herself, absently swaying on her heel. The memories of her last time sleeping with Mérante weren’t what she wished they were; she’d been hurting still from the fire, her body barely healing and aching with every touch, and she’d flinched as he wrapped his arm around her waist, leaning her head gently against his shoulder. It had been uncomfortable, extremely miserable, their lives thrown up in the air, and they’d been sleeping more for each other’s comfort more than anything else. Tonight, they were at least healthy, close and loving once again, and not huddling for warmth or clutching on to the other following a harrowing nightmare. Though, sharing a bed because the settee had been taken over by a stubborn child was hardly a perfect reason either.

"Would you like to use the bathroom to change? I don’t have a screen, unfortunately."

"I’ve changed in front of you before, Louis." But it was different then, wasn’t it? The last time she’d changed in front of him she was still a dancer, young and fresh, teasing him as she gradually removed her clothes. Now it felt... domestic. Older. They weren’t flirting teenagers any more, but adults in the process of re-kindling their relationship.

"Well if you don’t mind..." He pulled off his cufflinks and tossed them onto his bedside cabinet with a clatter, starting on his shirt buttons.

"I must ask, why didn’t you change earlier?"

He chuckled, tossing his shirt onto the bed and flexing his toned back. "I usually don’t change until late these days. Bad habit of mine."

"Changing late means you’re going to bed late."

"A composer never sleeps early, my dear."

Of course. He’d mentioned before how late he stayed up some nights finishing scores, or reworking choreography, or scrapping and restarting entire pieces out of sheer frustration. _"I can stay up till past one some nights. Luckily I think I’ve gotten used to not getting much sleep..."_

"Were you working tonight?" Or "working" as he usually put it. According to him, he wasn’t working unless he was at the Opera. Anything he produced at home was just an "idea", or a "skit" and not "work."

"I was getting ideas down. Nothing major." He threw his nightshirt on casually, unaware of how creased and shabby it was. Or maybe Odette was just used to ironing out bedclothes every night. "I’ve barely been able to think of ideas these days. Inspiration is hard to come by."

"Maybe you should write about a bad storm?" She removed her own shirt, tossing is aside and suddenly feeling a lot more youthful and flirtatious as she stood shirtless in front of her old love.

"They’ve healed well, haven’t they?"

It took Odette a moment to realise what he meant, and her eyes glanced down at the patchwork of shiny burn scars across her torso. "Well you haven’t seen them in years. I’d like to think they’ve healed since then." The last time he saw them they were still raw and angry, only a few months old and barely healing. To say they’d been ugly was an understatement.

"Gosh... it was, wasn’t it?" His shoulders slowly sagged, his years catching up with him it seemed. "Has it really been ten years? God, it doesn’t feel that long ago at all."

"Maybe not ten years. But a while ago, at least." Odette let her bun down, running her fingers from root to tip as she realised she hadn’t brought a hairbrush, prayed silently that Félicie had, and duly started to un-muss and braid it. "It’s strange. It doesn’t feel like a while ago, does it?"

"If I’m honest, I don’t know." His posture slackened as he drew a deep breath, suddenly seeming a lot older than he had mere moments before. "Everything feels so long ago these days to me. Either that, or I look back on the past and think, God, was that really five years ago? It feels like it was only last week. Do you ever feel like that? Like time is either crawling by or flying past you before you realise it?"

Odette shrugged. "I don’t know. Everything in between then and now feels like a blur." A long, slightly foggy blur of weary days and restless nights working as a common maid, interspersed with the odd day off where she followed a routine so stringently she could set a clock by it. Then somewhere along the line, a certain red-haired child had barged into her life, and that’s when her memories started to feel a little sharper. A little less blurry.

 _That was a year ago_ , her mind chimed rudely. Or maybe just over a year. The night she met Félicie had been warm, yet with a chill in the air, somewhere on the border between summer and autumn. Now it was winter once again, with the winds howling and snow in the air, the pavements threatening to ice over each night. Her least favourite time of year, in other words.

That summer’s evening felt so long ago.

"If I’m honest, I can’t even believe it was just ten years with all that happened. In my life anyway." He chuckled. "So much has happened since then. I feel like a different person entirely when I look back."

"I daresay some parts of you haven’t changed a bit." I wonder if I would have fallen for you again if you were still the same? Or if you had changed completely? Maybe the fact you’ve matured yet some parts of the younger you still remain is what drew me back to you...? You’re different, yet similar in the very best of ways. "Sometimes I swear I’m still dating the you from all those years ago."

"God, I feel sorry for you then! I wouldn’t wish the younger me on my worst enemy."

"Am I your worst enemy then? Because I fell for the younger you too." She felt her old, youthful smirk returning. Since they’d rekindled their love again, she’d noticed how much he used to talk about what he’d been like as a youth; how awful he’d been, what a nightmare he’d been for his parents, how he wished he’d been different back then. Sometimes she wondered what on Earth had happened to him to make him so ashamed. She knew she wasn’t as ashamed of her younger self, even though she’d also been... rude, and very arrogant, keenly aware of how talented she was and made her talents known by bossing other dancers around like she ran the class. Needless to say, she hadn’t been a popular dancer amongst the others. Nor had she been popular with the instructors, many of whom thought of her as a spoiled, pig-headed upstart. Come to think of it, the only person who’d truly praised her without following it up with a comment on how big her ego was had been Mérante.

"Ah, ah, my dear, I said I wouldn’t wish myself on someone else. You chose to be with me." With a huff, he threw back the covers and hopped into bed. "There’s a bit of a difference."

The large bed suddenly looked a lot more enticing now that the covers were mussed up and Mérante was practically beckoning her to join him under the covers. Or maybe the beckoning was just her imagination. Still, as she slipped in beside him (being sure to put a fair amount of distance between them), she suddenly felt a lot more at ease.

"I hope that wind lets up at some point. Wouldn’t want one of my windows blowing out either." Mérante yawned, running his hand back through his thick black curls. It was then that Odette noted the delicate pale streaks running from his temples into his nape. _Those hadn’t been there earlier, surely...?_

"Those suit you, you know." He looked at her curiously. "Those grey streaks. They really suit you."

"You think so?" He ran his hand through them again. Odette hated how such a simple gesture made her cheeks feel so much warmer. "I usually cover them up. They make me feel... old."

 _Well, you're hardly young._ Though it seemed rude to think it, she knew for a fact that by now he must be pushing forty. Not quite the sprightly twenty-year old she’d known back then. "You shouldn’t cover them. I think they look good on you."

Oh heavens, did her voice sound like she was flirting there, and Mérante’s coy smirk back did nothing to hide that fact. Still, she was only telling the truth, and something told her she could expect to see Mérante’s wonderful grey streaks more in future. The thought of running her fingers through them flashed through her mind.

"I’ll probably start getting them soon." Odette twisted a stray lock of hair around her finger, realising even now how her once dark hair seemed a little lighter. Was she going grey too? It wasn’t at all surprising when she thought about it; her life as a theatre cleaner wasn’t easy, with the early starts and late finishes and constantly feeling that she wasn’t going to get all her chores done in time had probably stressed her enough to turn her hair grey.

"And I’m sure they’ll suit you just as much as they suit me when you get them." Had they still been young, Odette knew he would’ve reached over and flicked her long braid. But he offered a sleepy smile instead, dipping down lower beneath the covers. "Let’s hope it stays quiet enough for us to sleep, eh? It’s late enough as it is."

Odette didn’t really want to think about how late it was. After all, she and Félicie had been trying to sleep for a good few hours before they decided to leave. "Are you tired?"  
He yawned. "I think that answers your question!"

With a sleepy chuckle, Odette snuggled further into her pillow, looking up at Mérante through her drooping eyes. "When was the last time we did this...?"

"Too long ago."

Her sleepy mind chugged into life, trying to recall their last true night together. There had been a few, she remembered, so many romantic nights (and mornings) they’d spent tangled up in bed in the months leading up to the fire. It had been so much... simpler then, she felt, when all they had to worry about was when their next rehearsal was. Now they had baggage, several missed years of communication, old unhealed wounds, and an eleven-year old child thrown into the mix to complicate things. Or maybe Odette was just looking back with rose-tinted glasses.

Mérante hummed, gently curling himself around her more and nudging against the back of Odette’s head. "God, I forgot how soft your hair feels..."

"And I forgot how you feel..." He’d always been a good spoon after all; the perfect size to wrap around her snugly, always comfortably warm and smelling ever so slightly of cologne and sweat. As a youth, his scent used to excite her, and energise her into doing something far less innocent than spooning, but now his scent made her feel... at ease, at peace, in the perfect mood to fall asleep.

Maybe tonight wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

oOo

Odette had never imagined she’d ever wake up entangled in Mérante’s arms again, legs wrapped around his, his hand lost in her loosened free strands of hair. She hadn’t really imagined what sleeping with him after so long would be like at all, to be honest. Perhaps she thought it would be less cuddly and intimate, and that they’d wake up on opposite sides of the bed, still in love but just not showing it. Not that she would ever complain about waking up so snugly, of course not, she’d wanted this for years, she was just surprised they’d somehow stayed so close throughout the night.

"Must have been cold last night." Mérante pulled his arms away from her to lazily rub his eyes and palm his tired face, breathing out a long sleepy breath and watching it vaporise in the chilly room. "Still cold now by the looks of it. I wonder if it snowed?"

"With that rain, it wouldn’t have settled anyway. Plus, Félicie would’ve woken us up if it was snowing." She still remembered the first morning the girl had seen snow in Paris, how she’d shaken her awake at half five in the morning, desperate to go outside and play in it. And how she’d harrumphed and moaned for the solid hour it took for Odette to track down child-sized winter clothes, went outside to play for all of ten minutes before deciding it was too cold and hurrying back inside to help Odette with morning chores, and complained through that as well.

"Speaking of, I wonder if she’s awake yet?" Mérante pushed himself up, eyeing the door to the living room. "What’s the time even?"

"Definitely too early for her to be up." The child wouldn’t be up any later than nine if she didn’t have any ballet classes to attend, and Odette knew that as a fact. Even on days where she had classes, she’d have to be woken up so she could get ready in time. Which usually meant waking her up at six.

As his pocket watch clicked shut, Mérante eased himself back under the covers. "Well, it’s not time for us to get up, that’s for certain." Odette wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know the time; part of her knew it would set her on edge, make her want to get up and start preparing for the day. And frankly she just wanted to stay in bed for as long as possible, at least for this morning.

She wondered if she’d have the same feelings if she woke up beside him every morning.

"Well, if we’re going to spend more time in bed then..." Her hand absently snaked around his waist, and she pulled herself closer, teasingly running her non-wounded leg up his. "What do you want to do?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason it took so long to post this was because I couldn't figure out how to join up a section. In the end I ended up just removing it completely
> 
> Here the part I removed because fuck it: 
> 
> Mérante stopped changing, seeming pensive. "Sometimes... I don’t think you’ve changed much at all."  
> "Well, my life seemed to stop after the fire. Or... it slowed down." Her brows creased. "I don’t feel any different, but I don’t feel the same either." If she had been bitter and snarky before the fire, she was twice as much now. Life as a housemaid, she had thought, would have made her more polite and refined, but instead she found herself muttering just as much as she had when she was a ballerina. Perhaps she’d just been naive back then? Probably.

**Author's Note:**

> I've straight up had this fic sitting in limbo since like...... mid 2018 and I just kept postponing it. Second half isn't even 100% complete yet but honestly at this point I'll probably just stitch it up and post it anyway lmao


End file.
